


When the Ice Rolls Back

by wrennette



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU, Climate Change, Future Fic, Minor Character Death, Off-screen death, Reincarnation, archiving old words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future, after the ice age, Arthur leads a team of scientists north. Setting foot on British soil for the first time, his memories return, and he goes looking for Avalon, and Merlin. Minor character death, mentions of major character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Ice Rolls Back

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving from LJ. Originally posted 2009.
> 
> Disclaimer: Merlin belongs to the BBC and Shine. Author makes no profit.
> 
> Original AN: (Oh, hi Merlin fandom, it's been a while!) Mordred is an adult in this one, maybe a couple years younger than Arthur, Morgana, Gwen and Lancelot, but not by a lot. Incorporates some other aspects of Arthurian mythology from outside the show. Also, I'm not a scientist by any means, and I got all my terms about glaciers [here](http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/glossary/).

When the climate finally evens itself out, and the sheets of glacial ice begin to retreat, leaving the lost continents carved into different shapes, he is one of the first explorers. He has been waiting his whole life for this, hoping the thaw would come in his lifetime. Dr. Arthur Pendragon has been at the top of his field since he burst onto the climatology scene with his revolutionary Ph.D. thesis, and he's tenured at Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard and Yale, such as they exist in the miniscule English speaking population that remains. With him is his favorite colleague and sometimes academic nemesis, the biologist Dr. Morgana Le Fay, their French colleague, Dr. Lancelot Du Lac, a soils scientist from the Sorbonne, and a few of their grad students and post grads, Dr. Le Fay's favorite tech, Gwen Regina, and of course their omnipresent military minder, Col. Nimueh d'Avalon, and her team, including Lt. Mordred Drew, a military scientist.

Between the lot of them, they're a fairly hardy bunch, but as they push into the moraine left behind where France used to be, it's hard to reconcile that their ancestors used to live here, that this was civilized land. They've been living in close quarters for so long, the entire remaining population of the world crushed into the narrow equatorial strip that still supports life. This expanse of open space, scraped raw by the retreating ice, just bare stone and gravel, melt-water mirroring the open skies from the hollows where it had settled after the majority drained away to the rapidly rising oceans. Drift and till are strewn about, and they have to just stand there, staring. The erratics dotting the landscape are cleft and polished, and it looks like the historic photographs of the moon, back when they had the spare resources for space exploration.

Slowly they push north, into newly sub-arctic Brittany. As they travel, they begin to notice the beginnings of life returning to the barren land. They gather samples constantly, labeling and documenting obsessively. When the reach the English Channel, they stare out over the frigid seas. The water is dotted with broken up floes of pack ice, and Morgana excitedly uses her high powered optics to pick out massive walruses and ice bears in the waves. That night they sleep uneasily, the military team on high alert. They can hear the bears and walruses on the shore, their deep throated calls carrying over the incessant crashing of the waves. In the morning they are all ragged, and Col. d'Avalon wants them to return head back south, content themselves with studying what's left of Europe. But that isn't their assignment, and Arthur sticks to his guns. They're going to the land the Romans once called Alba. They're going to Britain.

The boat takes a few hours to inflate, and they spend a few hours after that transferring their equipment and supplies over from the truck they've driven up from the lush gardens of North Africa. From the history books, they anticipate chalk cliffs ahead of them. But the famed white cliffs of Dover have been ground down to sloping hills, then polished to the brilliant white sheen of old bone by the retreating glaciers, and with a little careful navigation, they eased into one of the cirques left behind by the sheet ice. Beneath the under-hang, the sea cave extended up, the clear northern light reflecting up through the water, casting a milky glow up the sides of the chalky walls. They stay there that night, listening to the eerie lapping of the sea against the mouth of the cave and the creaking of the ice floes as they drift by. In the morning, they ease back out of the cave. It's a few hours up to where the mouth of the Thames used to empty into the sea, but the river mouth has shifted over the millennia, and it isn't where it's supposed to be. 

Soon, the military will launch mapping satellites, and things like this won't be a problem. For now though, Arthur is impatient. He wants to set foot on the land of his ancestors, no matter that it's just a pile of rocks at the moment. They find a cove large enough to shelter the boat, and spend the rest of the day setting up their first base camp. For dinner, they eat seal meat, and Morgana brings the bones and offal back to her lab, stays up too late studying them, taking samples and loading her camera full of photographs. While she works, Arthur dreams, and remembers. He remembers this land, long before this was London. He remembers the sound of this sea that ringed round his kingdom. He remembers Lancelot on his knees, and Guinevere grown round with his child. He remembers madness in Morgana's eyes and hatred in Mordred's. He remembers, and when he wakes, the memories cling to his mind, working their way into him. 

When he looks at Lance over breakfast, he sees the knowledge in the other scientist's dark eyes, and quickly Arthur herds his friend outside. They walk away from the camp a ways, and just look over the blasted landscape, trying to reconcile with the verdant land of plenty it once was. 

"This was the Summerlands," Lance finally said. "Guinevere's people," and Arthur nodded, remembering as well. "I love her," Lancelot said softly. "Even in this life. I love her more than anything. I won't let you take her from me. Not this time." Arthur shook his head with a wry little smile. 

"I think of her as a sister in this life," Arthur said softly, and as if drawn by their thoughts of her, Gwen approached, her face drawn and uncertain. Arthur smiled as warmly as he could then walked away, leaving them to murmur quietly at one another. 

When he returned to camp a while later, Arthur had taken quite a few photographs himself. Showing himself into their mess tent, he stopped short, watched Lt. Drew carefully guide a wrung out Morgana to a seat. The young soldier looked up, bright blue eyes confused and worried, and Arthur's mind couldn't help but remember those same eyes hardened in hate, looming above him, blood on a sword. 

"Not this time," Mordred promised, low and firm, and Morgana looked up, the madness lurking in her pale eyes once more. 

"I'm dreaming with my eyes open," Morgana said brokenly. "They don't stop, they don't ever stop. They change and shift, but they never stop." Arthur's heart broke a little, and he wrapped his arms tight around her slender shoulders. They might not have worked well as lovers, but they were the closest of friends, and nothing would ever change that. Arthur looked up at Mordred, found the young soldier worriedly watching Morgana. 

"Look after her?" Arthur asked, and Mordred nodded, hand settling protectively on Morgana's shoulder. That night, when they met for their usual going over of the day, Arthur noticed the little things in their posture. Gwen leaned into Lance affectionately, and Mordred's pale hand twined with Morgana's, his arm wrapped protectively about her tiny waist. Arthur could see the knowledge in their eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that Nimueh wasn't there. "Where is Col. d'Avalon?" he asked Mordred, but the solider just shook his head, uncertainty and a bit of fear in his brilliant eyes. 

"She's gone," Morgana said, and her voice was dreamy and certain at the same time. Gwen looked over, worry in her dark eyes, and Morgana's face firmed with resolution. "We have to go to Avalon," Morgana declared, and Arthur nodded after a moment, despite the confusion that marred the faces of their staffs. 

"I'm the head of this expedition," Arthur reminded the members of the military team when they opened their mouths to argue. "We leave base camp in the morning," he said firmly. "Get your things ready." They seemed ready to revolt again, but he looked at them steadily, and Mordred said:

"Yes Sir," soft and firm, and the rest of them sort of deflated. He looked over to Mordred gratefully, and the younger man dipped his head respectfully. "It'll be different this time," Mordred promised. "This land, the land itself, needs you. We can't afford petty squabbling." Arthur nodded gratefully, and gently Mordred helped Morgana up, escorted her from the tent. With a sigh Arthur wandered back to his own quarters, staring up at the sky. Over the intervening lifetimes, the stars had shifted in their paths. But the pole star still hung to the north, crowned in the borealis. He smiled, remembering Merlin's voice whispering long forgotten legends in his ear, and his heart clenched painfully. 

His dreams that night were more vivid, memories of other lifetimes, and none of them with his best friend, his confidant, his sorcerer. He hadn't seen Merlin since that first golden life, that age that had itself descended into legend, and his heart ached with that knowledge. He woke at first light though, and still caught in memories, he almost called for a servant. Swinging his feet out of bed, he rose, reality crashing down around him. Quickly he dressed, sturdy clothes and shoes, then readied a pack. They had to go on foot, the vehicles hadn't fit on the boat. It was a long journey, and to keep them from complaining too much, Arthur left some of the soldiers behind at base camp. Mordred headed the military contingent with them, but he deferred to Arthur readily, and so as they traveled, things settled into a comfortable sort of routine. At night, when the other soldiers were on picket, they sat around the fire, remembering. That first life, and the others they had shared, the lives they had lived apart from one another. 

One morning though, they trekked up a skree covered hill, and below them stretched the plain of Albion. The rich soil was dark and bare, nothing growing in it. But the shallow hollow had not been scraped back to bedrock by the retreating glaciers, and rivers and streams bubbled merrily in their paths. Slowly they went down into the valley, falling by habit onto the old road toward Camelot. The crown of the citadel's hill was lopped off, the ancient ruins of Camelot laid bare to her king. Carefully they descended into the shattered remains of their home. Arthur's breath caught in his chest as he stood over where his castle had once watched over the surrounding countryside, and by the time the others reached him, tears streamed silently down his face, cutting pale tracks down his dirt streaked face. They camped there that night, and none of them slept well. But Morgana had Mordred, and Gwen Lance, and Arthur had never felt more alone.

They set out again in the morning, but their steps were slower, and they were constantly looking back, half expecting to see the spires and flags of Camelot at their backs. It remained a flat topped hill though, hiding it's secrets from the new-born world. So they walked on, over the lifeless plains. Finally the lake stretched before them, still as glass. Despite the clarity of the air, the island was obscured from view, and the long ago whisperings of magic echoed back to Arthur's ears. He could feel it calling him though, pulling at him. The water would be ice cold though, and swimming an invitation of hypothermia, pneumonia, death. So they inflated a zodiac, big enough only for two if they took their packs. No one argued that Arthur must go. For his companion, they drew straws. Morgana pulled the short one, and she smiled beatifically. The others gave way with slightly less than their usual good humour, and they settled into the boat. Arthur rowed, Morgana navigated, and back on the shore, their friends waited. 

The mist came out of nowhere to surround them, and Arthur's breath caught in his throat. He had the sudden feeling of the passage of time, but he could not say whether it pulled them forwards or back. Morgana gasped sharply, and Arthur swiveled his head as the fog parted. The island lay before them, verdant and green. They passed through a veil of mist and magic, and Arthur shuddered as the isle took hold of them, pulling the boat to the rickety pier. Arthur passed Morgana up first, and they made the boat fast, not wanting to be stranded. Slowly they walked through the stone arch, and stopped short. Merlin lay, wide eyed and unseeing, upon the slab of the stone altar. One hand curled about the hilt of Excalibur, but the other trailed to the ground, his fingers stabbed into the green earth. Nimueh lay in the grass, painfully blue eyes glassy and dead, lips stained crimson with the blood that oozed slowly down her alabaster pale chin. 

"Merlin," Arthur breathed, and took a step forward. Morgana's arms around his waist stopped him, held him back, He turned to her angrily, but she shook her head. 

"He's killed her," Morgana pointed out needlessly. "He's not fully there Arthur. What if he kills you, too?" Arthur shook his head, looking back to Merlin, the planes of his pale slender body almost indistinguishable from the stone he lay upon. 

"I have to go to him," Arthur said, eyes still fixed on Merlin, and with a sigh Morgana loosed her hands. Slowly Arthur approached, body tense with anticipation. But Merlin didn't strike, just lay there, unseeing eyes turned to the brilliantly blue sky. Arthur shivered as he passed once more through a shimmering veil of magic, and slowly Merlin blinked to life. "Merlin?" Arthur asked tentatively, fingers catching roughly on the sharp upsweep of Merlin's cheek, and Merlin's sooty lashes fluttered again. 

When Merlin opened his eyes again, they were still fading from brilliant gold to stormy blue. Merlin's lips parted, his tongue flicking out, and Arthur couldn't help himself. He leaned in, kissing Merlin deep and hard. Merlin's slender fingers wound tightly into Arthur's golden hair, and they groaned in unison, parting to pant softly for oxygen. Arthur straightened, taking Excalibur and sinking the blade into the earth, then taking Merlin's hand and pulling gently. Both of Merlin's hands joined his, one tipped with dirt, the other smelling vaguely of metal. Merlin sat, and his blue eyes were blank and curious. He spoke, and Arthur stood there goggling, because that was not English. Merlin spoke again, fingers reaching up to trace tenderly along Arthur's face. 

"Merlin," Arthur breathed wistfully, and Merlin turned away, eyes flashing gold as his hand shot out. Arthur knocked his arm down in time to send the bolt of magic wide of Morgana, and she stood there wide eyed, the entire area reeking of ozone. 

"Merlin," Arthur said again, this time more firmly, and Morgana let out a low broken laugh. The madness had come back to the fore of her eyes, and Arthur knew she was seeing a million different alternate futures playing out over the present. She leaned into Merlin, their eyes locking together, pale foreheads resting together. Arthur didn't remember her knowing magic. He supposed, with the visions, it was a possibility. But she did something, and then she slumped to the ground at Merlin's feet. Merlin looked at her bowed head for a long time, and slowly his hand stretched out, quivering slightly. 

His hand hovered over her for a long moment, then tangled in her dark hair. She lurched forward, hugging Merlin's legs and sobbing softly. Merlin slowly looked up, and this time Arthur could see the spark of recognition in his eyes. Arthur leaned down slowly, kissed Merlin again, and his wizard melted into his arms. The air sang with magic, and when Arthur pulled away, the vaulted ceiling of the temple he had ordered built at Avalon soared over their heads, and the air was thick with the scent of apple blossoms. Lance and Gwen and Mordred stood in the door, and Arthur knew that if he climbed the west tower, he would see Camelot shining and whole in the distance.


End file.
